“Let’s move.”
The cold hit me like a physical blow. Not just winter, a wet, biting misery that sank straight through my tactical layers into the bone. The air smelled of ozone, damp concrete, and the metallic tang of city exhaust.
We moved.
Hellhound took point. I took the rear. We slipped through the shadows of the industrial park, moving between shipping containers and dormant machinery. The CuraNova Biotech building loomed ahead, a monolith of glass and steel, glowing softly from within.
It looked sterile. Corporate. Benign.
My stomach rolled over. Bile rose in my throat, hot and sour.
I knew this building.
I didn’t have a picture in my head, no specific scenes. But as we reached the perimeter fence, my body reacted with violent rejection. My skin crawled. The scars on my neck, usually numb, began to itch and burn.
Pain lives here.
“Loading dock.” Hellhound signaled with a hand movement.
I moved forward, stepping past him. My legs engaged, carrying me toward a specific shadow near a large compressor unit.
“Left. Avoid the camera. Northeast corner.”
The words tasted like ash. I hated it. I hated that my body was a map of this hellhole. I wasn’t a man, I was a glitched piece of hardware returning to the factory.
We reached the service door. Heavy, reinforced steel with a biometric reader and a keypad.
Hellhound pulled a decoder from his vest, but I reached out. My hand moved without my permission, hovering over the keypad, the black rubber buttons wet with sleet.
Don’t think. Use the asset.
My fingers danced.
8-4-7-2-9-3.
I stared at the numbers as I punched them in. They meant nothing to me. I had never seen them before in my conscious life. But my fingers knew the rhythm, the sequence.
Beep. Clack.
The magnetic lock disengaged with a heavy thud.
Havoc let out a low, impressed breath. “That is deeply unsettling. Remind me never to play poker with your subconscious.”
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The transition was instantaneous and jarring. The cold, wet chaos of the storm vanished, replaced by climate-controlled silence. The air here was dry, filtered, and smelled faintly of antiseptic cleaners.
Nausea hit me hard. I grabbed the doorframe, my vision tilting dangerously.
For a split second, I wasn’t standing in a service corridor. I was strapped to a table, screaming, but no sound was coming out. There was a light above me, blinding, white, searing. A voice was murmuring, calm and clinical. Increase the voltage. He’s resisting the wipe.
“Xavier.”
Hellhound’s voice was a sharp hook, snagging me back to the present.
I blinked, shaking my head. The hallway stabilized. White floors. White walls. Fluorescent lights humming overhead.
“Clear. I’m clear.”
